Chapter 135:

As the cheering died down, the leaders of the mercenaries made their way over. "That was a sick way to fight my friend! When we are done down here, I and every member of the Tuarox are buying you a drink." Dolan said cheerfully as he grabbed my arm for a forearm shake.

"Yea that was pretty impressive Apollo, I know back in my prime I could have taken the Phobos out myself, but age catches up to you." Caleb said, stroking his ego.

"I agree with Caleb, not the ego inflation part. You fighting their biggest threat and your battle tactic had saved a lot of men. Well done." Jacob said without much emotion.

Mindy said nothing, she only looked at Apollo with a smile that showed a great amount of relief. When she saw him keel over after the fight, she thought he had succumbed to his wounds. She wanted to rush over, but the beast he had fallen onto would roar anytime someone would get close. It was only after Kathrine arrived and the beast sniffed at her, was anyone able to asses Apollo's condition.

"Apollo, we are all relieved you are alright, but we really need to know where that gigantic beast went and what it was." Kathrine pressed the issue again. Well since the cat was out of the bag, quite literally, I had no reason to keep her a secret.

"Sapphire is my soul beast. A unique Psionic power I created during my awakening. Sapphire was created from the template of the first creature I ever killed."

"That behemoth was the first creature you ever killed?" Dolan asked with surprise." "Oh no, how to put this... Sapphire is basically a copy of the soul I killed. My power then changed the soul into its peak evolutionary state then used a part of my soul as a catalyst to bring it to life."

"Can you make it appear again? Despite its size, it was quite cute." Mindy said, causing a strange look from the other leaders. "What? I like cats." "That was no cat, that was a monster." Jacob retorted.

"No, sadly I cannot bring her out again for a while." I lied. "It take a tremendous amount of energy to materialise her and is basically my trump card for when I am going to lose."

That piece of information, though we are on the same side, brought peace to the mercenaries. Having a big, fuck off, cat appear out of nowhere while you are already fighting a competent warrior in strong armour was not their idea of fun.

"So enough with stroking my ego guys, how long was I out for, have you explored the temple yet?" I asked. "Temple? You mean like a church?" Kathrine asked. "Yeah, the Phobos was rather chatty for a robot saying how I would die on his Lord Ares' temple and so on. Good thing though, his mouth piece is what got him killed after all."

"So they really were Deimos and Phobos..." Kathrine muttered as she stared into the entrance of the temple. "Kat?" "Oh sorry handsome, We have not entered the temple yet, we were waiting to see if you would recover and to answer your question, you were unconscious for an hour and a half."

I nodded my head absently at the information, as I began to look at my armour. It was barely being held together a this point. Turning my head to my left, I saw the body of the Phobos, still untouched. "Give me a moment darlin'." I said to kat as I walked over to the Phobos.

I picked up Zircon off the ground who was currently over the top of the Phobos' Xiphos. I did not notice, but as I picked Zircon up, the Xiphos that cut withstand Zircons sharpness was now shattered in half and a large chunk the size of Zircons width was missing.

"Apollo, what are you doing?" Mindy questioned. "Fixing my armour, If we are pushing into the temple, I am not taking any chances." I cleanly sliced through both of the Phobos' arms and presented them to my suits orbs. Quite surprisingly, the metal used for this Phobos was very biomass efficient and healed almost the entirety of my suit.

Just to be safe though, I proceeded to remove the front chest shell from the Phobos and had my suit devour it all.

After it was done devouring everything, my suit had taken on a shine to it that it did not have before. I did not have time to check if my armour was any different as Dolan yelled. "Fuck me if I don't want one of those. Imagine not having to spend days after a battle fixing your armour. It was one of the biggest gripes I had back in the knights." S~eaʀᴄh the nôvel_Fire.ηet website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

"I did not know you were in the knights!" Caleb said with slight respect in his voice. "Oh aye, Imagine me in super heavy armour, going blow for blow against Drakoshi in a fist fight. I was discharged as I was overzealous with my armours, having them always coming back like Apollo here was like earlier.

Still, great pay for a short service, Used that money to set up my mercenary company." Dolan said as he stared at me deeply. "Though if I had a suit like that back in the knights, Id be so rich now Id have 50 Sepiidan wives back home taking care of my every need as I eat myself into an early grave HAHAHA!"

Kathrine scoffed in disgust at that statement before bringing order. "Alright everyone, now that Apollo is safe and our men have rested, Its time to explore the temple. You will double your men now in case another group of enemies are inside. The artifact you are looking for in there as you know should be encased in an orb the size of Dolans fat head." "Hey!" Dolan protested, but Kathrine continued.

"Once we have the artifact, we will leave this underground and fortify the base above for a dug in siege got it?"

"Wait what? Why?" Mindy asked confused. "I thought we were supposed to leave as soon as we got the artifact?" Jacob followed up. The other 2 remained quiet and I already knew exactly why.

Kathrine sighed, pretending to be saddened and spoke. "While you were down here, I have received some troubling intel. Alexandria has broken their neutrality clause and have sided with the Coalition. They don't know that we know yet, but Spartari are on there way to liberate the planets civilians from their corrupt leaders."

Kathrine was good. Enough truth in what she said to cover up the manipulative lies. "Bastards. Don't worry kat, If they come for us, My men will kill legions before they are killed." Dolan proudly stated. "I appreciate your loyalty to Spartari as a mercenary Dolan, but don't worry. Hopefully we will not have to do anything except stay put.

For now however, go and retrieve the artifact. I will head back above to make sure nothing else happens."

She then turned on her heels and looked at my helmets visor. "And you." she placed her hand on my chest plate. "If I see you that injured again I'll...Never mind just be careful ok?" "Ok, thanks for worrying." I replied and stroked the side of her face with my gauntlet.

Kathrine's face turned the same shade of red as her hair for but a moment, before she turned around to leave. "What was I even thinking just then? We have a fling, nothing more." Kathrine thought as she strutted away.

At some point, Caleb had placed down his tactical rock and took a 'heroic pose' "Worry not my friends, for the troubles of the surface can wait. For now, we have an artifact to obtain!" He yelled as he pointed towards the entrance to the temple.

There was a universal groan from the rest of the leaders present at Caleb's antics, before they left to ready their respective groups. I followed Caleb back to the Scythes and received uncomfortable looks from a lot of the members. That was until a certain woman with a helmet on her head appeared in my pathway.

She walked over and checked my armour for damage a moment. "Take of your helmet a moment." Janine asked with worry in her voice. I did as she requested and showed her my now cleaned, thanks to chonky girl, face to her. She then beckoned me to lean down which I did. And then she proceeded to whack me across the face as hard as possible.

"I thought you were dead you asshole!" She yelled before hugging my armour tightly. "Though I am glad you are not." She whispered. As I hugged her back.

Janine never had anyone she considered a best friend before, and she only realised Apollo became that in such a short amount of time when she thought she lost him. So to see him alive and well standing before her, She did not want to let go.

"Um Janine, can you let go? People are staring..."